The Big Book of Ghost Stories

by Otto Penzler

  “Ah! Then you did put that there? It was you who did it, then? Thank God! Thank God!”

  “No, no, I hadn’t finished. I was only wondering how anyone could have slipped past us and have written this, unseen. I’m sure,” puzzled, “there was nothing here but the red cross when I told you about it first, sir.”

  “Then you haven’t heard—no one has told you that old legend? The story of the Melverson curse?”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of it, I assure you.”

  “And you positively deny writing that, as a bit of a joke?”

  “Come, sir, it’s not like you to accuse me of such a silly piece of cheap trickery,” Kenneth retorted, somewhat indignantly.

  “Forgive me, boy. I—I should not have said that but—I am agitated. Will you tell me”—his voice grew tenser—“look closely, for God’s sake, Kenneth!—how many bodies are there in the wagon?”

  Dinsmore could not help throwing a keen glance at his future father-in-law, who now stood with averted face, one hand shielding his eyes as though he dared not ascertain for himself that which he asked another in a voice so full of shrinking dread. Then the American stepped closer to the door and examined the upper panel closely, while the soft dusk closed down upon it.

  “There are eleven bodies,” he said finally.

  “Kenneth! Look carefully! More depends upon your reply than you can be aware. Are you sure there are only eleven?”

  “There are only eleven, sir. I’m positive of it.”

  “Don’t make a mistake, for pity’s sake!”

  “Surely my eyesight hasn’t been seriously impaired since this morning, when I bagged my share of birds,” laughed the young man, in a vain effort to throw off the gloomy depression that seemed to have settled down upon him from the mere propinquity of the other.

  “Thank God! Then there is still time,” murmured the owner of the abbey brokenly, drawing a deep, shivering sigh of relief. “Let us return to the house, my boy.” His voice had lost its usually light ironical inflection and had acquired a heaviness foreign to it.

  Kenneth contracted his brows at Lord Melverson’s dragging steps. One would almost have thought the old man physically affected by what appeared to be a powerful shock.

  Once back in the library, Lord Melverson collapsed into the nearest chair, his breath coming in short, forced jerks. Wordlessly he indicated the bell-pull dangling against the wall out of his reach.

  Kenneth jerked the cord. After a moment, during which the young man hastily poured a glassful of water and carried it to his host, the butler came into the room.

  At sight of his beloved master in such a condition of pitiful collapse, the gray-haired old servitor was galvanized into action. He flew across the room to the desk, opened a drawer, picked up a bottle, shook a tablet out into his hand, flew back.

  He administered the medicine to his master, who sipped the water brought by Kenneth with a grateful smile that included his guest and his servant.

  Jenning shook his head sadly, compressing his lips, as Lord Melverson leaned back exhausted in his chair, face grayish, lids drooping over weary eyes.

  Kenneth touched the old servant’s arm to attract his attention. Then he tapped his left breast and lifted his eyebrows questioningly. An affirmative nod was his reply. Heart trouble! Brought on by the old gentleman’s agitation over a chalk mark on his front door! There was a mystery somewhere, and the very idea stimulated curiosity. And had not Lord Melverson said, “You will have to know, sooner or later”? Know what? What strange thing lay back of a red cross and a prayer to heaven, chalked upon the great Melverson portal?

  II

  Lord Melverson stirred ever so little and spoke with effort. “Send one of the men out to clean the upper panel of the front door, Jenning,” he ordered tonelessly.

  Jenning threw up one hand to cover his horrified mouth and stifle an exclamation. His faded blue eyes peered at his master from under pale eyebrows as he stared with dreadful incredulity.

  “It isn’t the red cross, m’lord? Oh, no, it cannot be the red cross?” he stammered.

  The thrill of affection in that cracked old voice told a little something of how much his master meant to the old family retainer.

  “It seems to be a cross, chalked in red,” admitted Melverson with patent reluctance, raising dull eyes to the staring ones fixed upon him with consternation.

  “Oh, m’lord, not the red cross! And—was the warning there? Yes? Did you count them? How many were there?”

  Terrible foreboding, shrinking reluctance, rang in that inquiry, so utterly strange and incomprehensible. Kenneth felt his blood congeal in his veins with the horrid mystery of it.

  Lord Melverson and his retainer exchanged a significant glance that did not escape the young American’s attention. The answer to Jenning’s question was cryptic but not more so than the inquiry.

  “The same as before, Jenning. That is all—as yet.”

  Kenneth’s curiosity flamed up anew. What could that mean? Could Jenning have been inquiring how many bodies were in the cart? There would be eleven, of course. How could there be more, or less, when the wood-carver had made them eleven, for all time?

  The old servant retired from the room, dragging one slow foot after the other as though he had suddenly aged more than his fast-whitening hairs warranted.

  In his capacious armchair, fingers opening and closing nervously upon the polished leather that upholstered it, Lord Melverson leaned back wearily, his eyes wide open but fixed unseeingly upon the library walls with their great paintings in oil of bygone Melversons.

  “Kenneth!” Lord Melverson sought his guest’s eyes with an expression of apology on his face that was painfully forced to the surface of the clouded atmosphere of dread and heaviness in which the old nobleman seemed steeped. “I presume you are wondering over the to-do about a chalk mark on my door? It—it made me think—of an old family tradition—and disturbed me a little.

  “There’s just one thing I want to ask you, my boy. Arline must not know that I had this little attack of heart-failure. I’ve kept it from her for years and I don’t want her disturbed about me. And Kenneth, Arline has never been told the family legend. Don’t tell her about the cross—the chalk marks on my door.” His voice was intensely grave. “I have your word, my boy? Thank you. Some day I’ll tell you the whole story.”

  “Has it anything to do with the quaint verse in raised gilded letters over the fireplace in the dining-hall?” questioned Kenneth.

  He quoted it:

  “Melverson’s first-born will die early away;

  Melverson’s daughters will wed in gray;

  Melverson’s curse must Melverson pay,

  Or Melverson Abbey will ownerless stay.”

  “Sounds like doggerel, doesn’t it, lad? Well, that’s the ancient curse. Foolish? Perhaps it is—perhaps it is. Yet—I am a second son myself; my brother Guy died before his majority.”

  “Coincidence, don’t you think, sir?”

  Lord Melverson smiled wryly, unutterable weariness in his old eyes. “Possibly—but a chain of coincidences, then. You—you don’t believe there could be anything in it, do you, Kenneth? Would you marry the daughter of a house with such a curse on it, knowing that it was part of your wife’s dowry? Knowing that your first-born son must die before his majority?”

  The American laughed light-heartedly.

  “I don’t think I’d care to answer such a suppositious question, sir. I can’t admit such a possibility. I’m far too matter-of-fact, you see.”

  “But would you?” persistently, doggedly.

  “I don’t believe a word of it,” sturdily. “It’s just one of those foolish superstitions that people have permitted to influence them from time immemorial. I refuse to credit it.”

  Did Kenneth imagine it, or did Lord Melverson heave a deep, carefully repressed sigh of relief?

  “Hardly worth while to go over the old tradition, is it?” he asked eagerly. “You wouldn’t
believe it, anyway. And probably it is just superstition, as you say. Ring for Jenning again, will you? Or—do you want to lend me your arm, my boy? I—I feel a bit shaky yet. I rather think bed will be the best place for me.”

  III

  After Kenneth had bidden Lord Melverson goodnight, he got out his pipe and sat by his window smoking. Tomorrow, he decided, he would try his fate; if he could only get Arline away where they could be alone. Little witch, how she managed always to have someone else around! Tomorrow he would know from her own lips whether or not he must return to America alone.

  The clock struck midnight. Following close upon its cadences, a voice sounded on the still night, a voice raucous, grating, disagreeable. The words were indistinguishable and followed by a hard chuckle that was distinctly not expressive of mirth; far from it, the sound made Kenneth shake back his shoulders quickly in an instinctive effort to throw off the dismal effect of that laugh.

  “Charming music!” observed he to himself, as he leaned from his window.

  Wheels began to grate and crunch through the graveled road that led around the abbey. The full moon threw her clear light upon the space directly under Kenneth’s window. He could distinguish every object as distinctly, it seemed to him, as in broad daylight. He listened and watched, a strange tenseness upon him. It was as though he waited for something terrible which yet must be; some unknown peril that threatened vaguely but none the less dreadfully.

  The noise of the wheels grew louder. Then came a cautious, scraping sound from the window of a room close at hand. Kenneth decided that it was Lord Melverson’s room. His host, hearing the horrid laughter that had been flung dismally upon the soft night air, had removed the screen from his window, the better to view the night visitor with the ugly chuckle.

  The grinding of wheels grew louder. And then there slid into the full length of the moon a rude cart drawn by a lean, dappled nag and driven by a hunched-up individual who drew rein as the wagon came directly under Lord Melverson’s window.

  From the shadow of his room, Kenneth stared, open-eyed. There was something intolerably appalling about that strange equipage and its hunched-up driver, something that set his teeth sharply on edge and lifted his hair stiffly on his head. He did not want to look, but something pushed him forward and he was obliged to.

  With a quick motion of his head, the driver turned a saturnine face to the moon’s rays, revealing glittering eyes that shone with terrible, concentrated malignancy. The thinly curling lips parted. The cry Kenneth had heard a few minutes earlier rang—or rather, grated—on the American’s ear. This time the words were plainer; plainer to the ear, although not to the sense—for what sense could they have? he reasoned as he heard them.

  “Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!”

  A stifled groan. That was Lord Melverson, thought Kenneth, straining his eyes to watch the strange scene below.

  For suddenly there rose from out of the shadow of the abbey’s great gray walls two figures bearing between them a burden. They carried it to the cart and with an effort lifted it, to toss it carelessly upon the grisly contents of that horrid wagon—contents that Kenneth now noted for the first time with starting eyes and prickling skin. And as the white face of the body lay upturned to the moon, a terrible cry wailed out from Lord Melverson’s apartment, a cry of anguish and despair. For the moon’s light picked out the features of that dead so callously tossed upon the gruesome pile.

  “Oh, Albert, Albert, my son, my son!”

  Kenneth leaned from his window and peered toward that of his host. From above the sill protruded two clasped hands; between them lay the white head of the old man. Had he fainted? Or had he had another attack of heart-failure?

  The driver in the roadway below chuckled malignantly, and pulled at his horse’s reins. The lean, dappled nag started up patiently in answer, and the cart passed slowly out of sight, wheels biting deep into the road-bed. And as it went out of sight among the deep shadows cast by the thickly wooded park, that harsh chuckle floated back again to the American’s ears, thrilling him with horror of that detestable individual.

  The hypnotic influence of that malignant glance had so chained Kenneth to the spot that for the moment he could not go to the assistance of Lord Melverson. But he found that he had been anticipated; as he reached his door, Jenning was already disappearing into his host’s room. Kenneth retreated, unseen; perhaps he would do better to wait until he was called. It might well be that the drama he had seen enacted was not meant for his eyes and ears.

  After all, had he seen or heard anything? Or was he the victim of a nightmare that had awakened him at its end? Kenneth shrugged his shoulders. He would know in the morning. Unless it rained hard in the meantime, the wheels of the cart would have left their mark on the gravel. If he had not dreamed, he would find the ruts made by those broad, ancient-looking wheels.

  He could not sleep, however, until he heard Jenning leave his master’s room. Opening the door softly, he inquired how Lord Melverson was. The old servitor flung a suspicious glance at him.

  “I heard him cry out,” explained Kenneth, seeing that the old man was averse to any explanation on his own side. “I hope it is nothing serious?”

  “Nothing,” replied Jenning restrainedly. But Dinsmore could have sworn that bright tears glittered in the old retainer’s faded blue eyes and that the old mouth was compressed as though to hold back an outburst of powerful emotion.

  Arline Melverson, her face slightly clouded, reported that her father had slept poorly the night before and would breakfast in his own room. She herself came down in riding-habit and vouchsafed the welcome information that she had ordered a horse saddled for Kenneth, if he cared to ride with her. Despite his desire to be alone with her, the American felt that he ought to remain at the abbey, where he might be of service to Lord Melverson. But inclination overpowered intuition, and after breakfast he got into riding-togs.

  “I believe I’m still dreaming,” he thought to himself as he rode back to the abbey at lunchtime, his horse crowding against Arline’s as he reached happily over to touch her hand every little while. “Only this dream isn’t a nightmare.”

  Instinctively his glance sought the graveled road where the dead-cart of the night before had, under his very eyes, ground its heavy wheels into the ground. The road was smooth and rutless. After all, then, he had dreamed and had undoubtedly been awakened by Lord Melverson’s cry as the old man fainted. The dream had been so vivid that Kenneth could hardly believe his eyes when he looked at the smooth roadway, but his new happiness soon chased his bewilderment away.

  As the young people dismounted before the door, Jenning appeared upon the threshold. The old man’s lined face was turned almost with terror upon his young mistress. His lips worked as though he would speak but could not. His eyes sought the other man’s as if in supplication. “What’s the matter, Jenning?”

  “Master Albert, Mr. Dinsmore! M’lord’s first-born son!”

  “What is it?” Arline echoed. “Is my brother here?”

  “I can’t tell her, sir,” the major-domo implored of Kenneth. “Take her to Lord Melverson, sir, I beg of you. He can tell her better than I.”

  Kenneth did not take Arline to her father. The girl fled across the great hall as if whipped by a thousand fears. Kenneth turned to Jenning with a question in his eyes.

  Down the old man’s face tears ran freely. His wrinkled hands worked nervously together. “He fell, sir. Something broke on his plane. He died last night, sir, a bit after midnight. The telegram came this morning, just after you and Miss Arline went.”

  Kenneth, one hand pressed bewildered to his forehead, walked aimlessly through that house of sorrow. Albert Melverson had fallen from his plane and died, the previous night. Had that dream, that nightmare, been a warning? Had it perhaps been so vivid in Lord Melverson’s imagination that the scene had been telepathically reproduced before the American’s own eyes?

  Although puzzled and disturbed beyond wor
ds, Kenneth realized that the matter must rest in abeyance until Lord Melverson should of his own free will explain it.

  In the meantime there would be Arline to comfort, his sweetheart, who had just lost her dearly beloved and only brother.

  IV

  Two months had hardly passed after Albert’s death before Lord Melverson broached the subject of his daughter’s marriage.

  “It’s this way, my boy. I’m an old man and far from well of late. I’d like to know that Arline was in safe keeping, Kenneth,” and he laid an affectionate hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  Kenneth was deeply affected. “Thank you, sir. I promise you I shall do my utmost to make her happy.”

  “I know you will. I want you to speak to Arline about an early wedding. Tell her I want to see her married before—before I have to leave. I have a very powerful reason that I cannot tell you, my boy, for Arline to marry soon. I want to live to see my grandson at her knee, lad. And unless you two marry soon, I shall be powerless to prevent—that is, I shall be unable to do something for you both that has been much in my mind of late. It is vital that you marry soon, Kenneth. More I cannot say.”

  “You don’t need to say more. I’ll speak to Arline today. You understand, sir, that my only motive in not urging marriage upon her now has been your recent bereavement?”

  “Of course. But Arline is too young, too volatile, to allow even such a loss to weigh permanently upon her spirits. I think she will yield to you, especially if you make it plain that I want it to be so.”

  Kenneth sought Arline thoughtfully. Lord Melverson’s words impressed him almost painfully. There was much behind them, much that he realized he could not yet demand an explanation of. But the strength of Lord Melverson’s request made him surer when he asked Arline to set an early date for their marriage.

  “I am ready if Father does not consider it disrespectful to Albert’s memory, Kenneth. You know, dear, we intended to marry soon, anyway. And I think Albert will be happier to know that I did not let his going matter. You understand, don’t you? Besides, I feel that he is here with us in the abbey, with Father and me.